Death Penalty
by Swamp-Eyes
Summary: [ONESHOT] InGame. Cloud has a chance to kill Sephiroth. But he just can't pull that trigger. [Cloud&Seph no yaoi, no slash]


**Death Penalty**

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_One slip, and down the hole we fall  
It seems to take no time at all  
A momentary lapse of reason  
That binds a life for life._

_Pink Floyd_

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Cloud Strife was pointing the gun _there_, in the middle of _His _alabaster forehead, barely touching the so pale skin, which left thin blue veins in sight. Yes: it was there, between his refined silver eyebrows, shimmering locks caressing the metallic barrel - and there wasn't any concrete possibility to fail the shot.

Still, his finger actually _was _hesitating on the trigger.

He would have been shaking if he hadn't been somehow completely frozen by those emerald Mako-injected eyes, in contemplation of those flawless features, intimidated by the over 10 centimetres of height which divided them. Sephiroth wasn't beautiful - no. Nothing of that sort. His' was just arid, aloof, pure _perfection.  
Frightening _perfection

That was Cloud's second chance to kill him. It had happened years ago, inside that infernal reactor. With an inhuman physical and moral strength he had managed, that time, to throw _Him _in that chaos of flame underneath them. But _now_ - all was different.  
That - that disconcerting _creature _who stood unarmed in front of him was _not_ Sephiroth, not the General of the war in Wutai, not even the psycho of Nibelheim. He was _infected _by something, he was transmigrating into someone - _something _- else.

Unable to stand his sight anymore, Cloud fixed his eyes to the gun. Vincent's Death Penalty. "For a while I don't want to shoot this.." and with this statement the enigmatic Vincent, after having visited a cave in which visions had apparently occurred only to him, had left them two days ago. It was not the first time Vincent went away without explanation, to then re-join them after a few days. But it _was _the first time he entrusted his gun to Cloud.  
Irony of fate, the Death Penalty appeared to Cloud one of the most suitable weapon to kill Sephiroth with. Vincent had extremely negative feelings towards Sephiroth - a sort of _repulsion_, probably. The son of his lost woman and the man who had stolen her from him.

_But -_ it _was_ difficult _- impossible? -_ not impossible, certainly_.  
_Because it was just his finger on the trigger. Not any particular gunslinger's ability was needed - all he needed was to pull it.  
Pull it and break into pieces the man who was now offering himself to him as defenceless and vulnerable as a glass-statue.  
/_Why?_/

Cloud didn't want to speak though his brains were a congestion of thoughts.

What - _what _was holding him back?  
Devotion, maybe, that damned devotion he had for him, that _boundless _admiration he had never managed to scavenge from the depths of his ego.

Abruptly, the overgrowing sense of power that the feeble, easy trigger under his finger gave him reached the breaking point.  
Cloud, in a sort of lapsus in which his wills of any kind had just disappeared - in a _blankminded _moment - in that moment Cloud shoot the Death Penalty.

But what followed was just a _click_.  
An innocuous, inoffensive _click_.

And that innocuous, inoffensive _click _radically destroyed, devastated, _annihilated _Cloud.  
In a moment their roles were reversed, and Cloud lost all his strength, all energy instantly deserted his body as if his soul had just elapsed.

The Death Penalty fell to the ground, his knees fell to the ground.

He was so _weak _- weak as he had always been, weak as he would always be - a weak _being _who struggled to survive.

But this was not the most perturbing thing.  
The most perturbing thing was the unsuspected _feeling _which was gushing from his heart, which was tightening his throat.

**/I haven't killed him/**

In the blurred confusion he was now going through, Cloud saw three bullets falling from Sephiroth's white palm, then clinging briefly on the floor. He didn't know - didn't _want _to know - _when _Sephiroth had extracted them from the gun.  
And maybe now his expression, his usually void eyes, looked like an open book.

- I guess you're now experimenting, Strife, that not always what we _think _we want - or what we think would be _better _for us - is what makes us happy. -Sephiroth's voice was almost ironic.

Cloud didn't _dare _looking up at him again. He had his eyes wide open, his voice strangled from something, his throat now burning.

**/I haven't killed him/**

Cloud knew it was absurd, knew perfectly that their final battle was just procrastinated.  
_But,_while Sephiroth walked away, Cloud was finally able to discern _that _feeling which was suffocating him.  
And it was euphoria - it was pure _joy_.

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**The End.  
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**Author'sNotes: **Ok, I don't know if this is a drabble, a one-shot, or what else. It just popped out in my mind, so here it is. I'm not a big yaoi fan, I usually try to avoid it if it's possible. This is not yaoi, and there is not supposed to be any sort of yaoi implication between the characters. Still, I have to admit that the relationship between Cloud and Sephiroth is ambiguous, and even if I don't see in it love _that way_, Cloud surely have strong feelings towards Sephiroth, near to idolatry.  
So feel free to express your point of view on this topic, and tell me what you think about the story.

Swamp-eyes.


End file.
